shu

The pioneer 4x6 look like they will fit into the stock base without any modifications.

CaptainGSR

Well, I finally decided to replace my speakers. I decided to keep the old (Ugly) Alpine head unit, and ordered Polks MMs Front and Rears on Ebay yesterday. I got the MM5251s and MP461ps. I did not want to mix and match different brands.
Hopefully my 4*18watts RMS will be enough...
I'll post pics of the install when I get to it. Time to dust off the Dremel!

shu

I think I read a post stating that 5.25 are too small for the front.

cy7878

5.25 is too small for the front. To get them to fit, you will need to cut the rim off the old speakers to make an adaptor. The good thing about this is the stock front grills can be reused. I highly recommend just getting 6 inches if you can find them, 6.5 otherwise.

The rears, Eclipse makes a 4x6 that drops in for a perfect fit with no modifications whatsoever.

CaptainGSR

Doing my part for the economy, I will be doing two cars at once (Porsche/Integra)! I ordered four pairs of speakers: MM5251/MM461p for the Porsche, and MM6501/MM651 for the Integra.
I will therefore have a chance to try both sizes in the Porsche (5.25 and 6.5s).
I will make the adapter and keep the stock grills, only if i can reuse the stock tweeter covers. I have black interior, and I find the MM Grills to be quite good looking.
Worse comes to worse, I will resell the 5.25s. The 6.5s are cheaper anyways.

I know these MMs are not the easiest speakers to fit in a 993, but the price was right, and I love the way they sound without an Amp or Sub.

CaptainGSR

I just finished installing my Polk Audio MM461p's.

The previous owner had installed the cheapest Pioneer speakers he could find! The difference is quite amazing.

I just bolted the speakers on the factory brackets. These latest just needed some very minor trimming, for the Polks to fit.

The stock grills now sit about 3mm higher than stock. Yes, the grills are not perfectly flush with the deck, but I can live with it! They still look "stock enough" to me!

The good news is that the grills now rest on the outer frames of the polk speakers, not the speakers themselves.
I recommend using a light coat of epoxy, at all four corners of the stock brackets, to secure the grills in place (no more than a 1 to 2mm bubble). The lighter the coat, the easier they will be to remove some day. (BTW: my grills are currently in place with no epoxy)

Not knowing how to mount the speakers at first, the whole installation took me a good three hours. It should be done in less than two!
1- I first unbolted the rear seat belts (just push down on the bottom plastic covers to expose the seat belts' bolts).
2- I then removed the four black screws behind the rear seats' backs.
3- The whole rear deck could now be pulled out of the car, while carefully sliding the belts through the deck's slots.
You don't have to do any of that, if you are comfortable with working inside the car (i.e. very short).

Notes:
Make sure you have some spare connectors, the MM461p's do not come with anything but the speakers themselves.
For the best sound quality, there should be no gap between the speakers, the stock brackets, and the deck surface itself.

Cheers,

Johan

H.H.Chinn

I would have opted to mill off the speaker mounting tabs like SHU did and epoxied them in so that the factory grilles snapped into place. My Polk speakers that I installed have a sheet metal mounting frame so the gap I have is only the thickness of the sheet metal which is neglegable.
Anything is better than the junk Nokias.

mrsullivan

Harlan, I took a *gulp* when I saw the title of this thread...hoping you didnt do anything too extreme to that beautiful stock 98 C2S. I was pleasantly surprised to see this was all under the speaker plate...looks cold stock original, nice job!

CaptainGSR

That's one option I strongly considered. In the end, I did not have the heart to cut the speakers, nor the brackets. Removing the tabs is not enough. These speakers are too wide. They need to be trimmed to fit in the stock brackets.

Everything can still be brought back to stock at anytime this way.

shu

Captain GSR, did you have any clearance problems with the pass side speaker? I remember having to put the tweeter side of the 4x6 towards the inside (opposite of what was pictured) so the maget would not hit the wiring bracket.

CaptainGSR

I installed the speakers, with the rear deck out of the car. I did not feel any resistance when putting the whole thing back in, but I was not looking either...
The speakers probably sit a good 1/4" higher than yours. Hopefully that's enough.

Either way, I don't think it is a big problem. The stock wires seemed well insulated, and the magnet is after all, a non moving part. I also can't hear any interference or distortion, and the rear deck appears perfectly level.
They sound better than the front speakers! (larger enclosure, no baffle behind them)

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Your installation does look a lot better than mine. Flush grills do look a lot better.
Of course, Nobody notices that stuff, except us:-)

shu

So far I am real happy with those Polk Audio Plates......sounds great with my new headunit and focal fronts!

CaptainGSR

I just thought of something! What about the rear Hifi speaker grills? Aren't they bigger than ours?
This might be the answer to all our problems.
Does anybody have a picture of the rear HiFi grills? Brackets? Measurements?
I would like to make a side by side comparison.

Cheers,

H.H.Chinn

Mr. Sullivan, you should know by now, I'm all about restoration/preservation. Note, I even salvaged the old Nokia plug and soldered new wire leads with spade connectors so I could reuse the existing plugs from the wiring harness.

ecobb993

Now that a number of folks have been enjoying their new speakers for a while; has anyone noticed an issue caused by replacing the original 12 ohm speakers with 4 ohm?

I'm about to launch my replacement (I've got Blaupunkt GTx 462 speakers that drop right into the mounting plate without modification), but have a concern the lower resistance speakers might cause a power amp overload condition.